Winterizing your 4-cycle power equipment engine

Winterizing your 4-cycle power equipment engine. Fall is here. It's time to winterize your power equipment. I have prepared a DIY guide to winterize your 4-cycle engine to reduce your problems in the spring. This is not a "tune-up" guide, but is merely intended to save you money in spring tune-up costs. Check out my winterizing guide. Winterizing is very important and will most likely reduce spring tune-up costs. Even if you don't feel comfortable changing the oil, spark plug, or air filter, at least stabilize your fuel. If this is still not something you feel comfortable with, take your machines to your servicing dealer. It will cost no more than it would in the spring. Matter of fact, it may cost you less. They may give you a fall/winter discount and it may prevent a lot of problems for you in the spring. Good luck, Eli

Lawn care business tips

Just bringing this back to the top to remind people to winterize their power equipment. Winterizing your power equipment can save you a lot of $$$ in the spring. Good luck, Eli

[jasonw]

How about some quick tips on must do procedures for winterizing?

Originally Posted by jasonw

How about some quick tips on must do procedures for winterizing?

Are you looking for something with just a list of things to do? like a, b, c, d, e,? With no instruction on how to? If so, I'll write something up real quick.

jasonw,

I think this is more down the line of what you were wanting. Check this out and tell me if this is what you wanted. F.A.Q. What should I do to get my machine ready for the winter?

Btw, if there are other F.A.Q topics you are interested in seeing, let me know and I will see what I can come up with (I have a relatively large F.A.Q. list already, check them out).

[justin_time]

I usually get some fuel stabalizer and put that in my mower that have lots of gas. The ones I can take the gas out, I empty it out and run them dry.

I usually remove the gas from the trimmers and run them until they don't want to work

They all start no problem in the spring

Originally Posted by justin_time

I usually get some fuel stabalizer and put that in my mower that have lots of gas. The ones I can take the gas out, I empty it out and run them dry.

I usually remove the gas from the trimmers and run them until they don't want to work

They all start no problem in the spring

That is definitely the MOST IMPORTANT part of the winterizing!

Eli

[jasonw]

I usually do nothing to mine. Things slow down a little bit for me but I still use everything on a weekly basis. Our climate doesn't really get bad enough to be dead all winter. At the very least I am mowing my own yard once a week year round. The one thing I am doing is using battery tenders on stuff like the lawn tractor. Its been in the 20's over night here the past few nights and that kind of stuff seems to reak havoc on batteries.

That would be nice having constant warm weather. Maybe. I don't think I would like having to mow all year long though!

The biggest thing that I see that I would recommend, even with running your mower every week is to stabilize the fuel. It can deteriorate in just weeks and what they call "phase separation" takes place very quickly. Some stabilizers help prevent this phase separation.

Eli